Science & Tech · Space · 1 hr ago
Chinese astronomers find a stable three-star system 7,000 light years away
Chinese astronomers used the FAST radio telescope to find a three-star system about 7,000 light years from Earth.
The system contains two dead stars and one living star in a steady cosmic dance.
One dead star is a pulsar, a star that sends out regular pulses as it spins.
The pulsar spins more than 300 times a second, faster than 300 rotations per second.
It orbits a white dwarf every eight days; a white dwarf is the dim, burnt-out core of a smaller star.
Unlike the chaotic system in Liu Cixin’s novel *The Three-Body Problem*, this real system appears stable.
Chinese astronomers found a stable three-star system about 7,000 light years from Earth.
The researchers used FAST, the world’s biggest single-dish radio telescope, in southwestern China.
The system contains two dead stars and one living star.
One dead star is a pulsar that spins more than 300 times a second.
The pulsar orbits a white dwarf every eight days.
- Who
- Chinese astronomers.
- What
- They found a stable system of three stars, including two dead stars and one living star.
- When
- The article was published on 2026-10-23. The discovery date is not stated.
- Where
- About 7,000 light years from Earth. The researchers used FAST in southwestern China.
- Why
- Not stated.
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- Distance from Earth
- About 7,000 light years
- Telescope
- FAST, the world’s biggest single-dish radio telescope
- System
- Two dead stars and one living star
- Pulsar spin
- More than 300 times a second
- Pulsar orbit
- Once every eight days
What people are saying
far better behaved